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Top 3 Speed Tips for Sites using Google Analytics

Top 3 ways to speed up websites that use Google Analytics. Host Script Locally, Fix Google-Analytics Cookie Domain, and Failsafe Loading for optimum tracking statistics.

Tagged: Analytics, cookie, Google, Google Analytics, Javascript, Tracking Code | 9 Comments | Continue...

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Serve External Javascript Files locally for Increased Speed

One way I speed up AskApache.com is by downloading external third-party javascript files to host on my own server instead of externally. In addition to the obvious speed boost, this lets you configure the caching and compression settings for the files.

Tagged: bash, shell script, Shell Scripting | 5 Comments | Continue...

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About AskApache

Purpose and Goal of AskApache
To provide free access to knowledge and data with the goal of empowering people.. or more melodramatically: “Power to the People!”
Why the name AskApache? AskApache was chosen to show and pay respect to the contributors of the Apache Web Server. Literally it means to ask Apache when facing a problem, by searching the Open-Source, contacting a board/list, or browsing the documentation.
The Author
I work for a multimedia production / brand development & marketing company here in Indianapolis, the greatest city in the world! I started this blog in Dec., ‘06 to familiarize myself with WordPress as a blogging platform among other things for my job. I help expand/create a growing companies market-share online (and offline) by managing and building the brand and developing high-quality leads and loyal customers by building online funnels fed by SEO traffic and on/offline marketing campaigns. Other than the design and development costs for our minimum 12 month contract, we operate using a gain-share formula where we receive a percentage of the increased revenue that results from our services. This translates to fanatical attention to improving the bottom-line, and focus on long-term sustainable growth and overall success.
It’s important to me to note that unlike most systems set up like this, we are absolutely interested in creating customers/leads/whatever by providing real value for them. It’s much more difficult and takes a lot longer, but it is also self-sustaining as value attracts in an exponential manner. We are likely different than any model you’ve seen before in terms of lead-sales-marketing types.
My Background
I started on DOS, then Windows 2.11 (released 1989), and learned BASIC for my first language… then IBM PC assembly followed by Java, which I used as an excuse to stop learning assembly.. …

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SEO Secrets of AskApache.com

Learn how in a year, with no previous blogging experience this blog was able to rank so high in search engines and achieve 15,000 unique visitors every day. Uses combination of tricks and tips from throughout AskApache.com for Search Engine Optimization.

Tagged: askapache, SEO, seo secrets | 5 Comments | Continue...

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Auto-Login to Google Analytics to impress Clients

Google Analytics for your clients sites is a no-brainer, it ROCKS! I have 100+ client sites running Analytics and all of them have trouble-free (no password or username to remember) access to their site reports. Thanks to the method in this post, my clients couldn’t be happier..

Tagged: Analytics, Forms, Google, Login, password, post | 21 Comments | Continue...

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Speed Up Google Analytics, use local ga.js

Host Google Analytics ga.js file locally for increased speed! Makes web pages load faster.

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Fetch Feed Subscribers from Google Reader with CURL

PHP curl example utilizing cookies, POST, and SSL options to login to Google Reader and fetch the number of subscribers for a particular feed url.

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Tips on Writing WordPress Plugins

Thought I’d give you all the tips and tricks that I’ve learned and use when developing WordPress plugins.. which can be quite fun!

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Renaming Sponsored Links in AdSense

Google AdSense calles their AdSense Ads, “Sponsored Links”, while Text-Link-Ads.com recommends “Sponsored By”. Of course it is against the Google Adsense TOS to rename your ads, but in general, for non-adsense, what do you like to call your sponsored links?

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SEO with Robots.txt

Very nice tutorial dealing with the robots.txt file. Shows examples for google and other search engines. Wordpress robots.txt and phpBB robots.txt sample files.

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Login to Google AdSense using PHP

Demo php cURL code, that automatically logs into Google AdSense, using cookies and post fields with the POST method.

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Speed Up Google Analytics with urchin.js

Update: This article is a bit dated, to get the newest and latest Google Analytics Speed Tips, check out the 3 part update about Hosting, Cookie Domains, and JavaScript Loading and Failproofs

Ever notice that sometimes your sites take a while to load all the way because google’s urchin.js file is taking forever? You may recognize this problem when you see something similar to this in your browsers status bar “Transferring data from google-analytics.com…”

Time To Setup?
4 minutes I got tired of seeing that all the time and so I set up an automated cronjob that runs every 12 hours and downloads the latest version from google, and saves it to my website directory, then I reference /urchin.js instead of http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js.. and my site loads a lot faster!
Take a look at the source for this page if you want to see what is going on (look at the bottom)
There are 2 pretty major things that you accomplish by hosting urchin.js locally

You Enable persistant connections
You ensure that the correct 304 Not Modified header is sent back to your site visitors instead of reserving the entire file.

The urch.sh shell script
Create a shell script called urch.sh.. this will be executed every 1/day or 1/wk, whatever you want. The following script removes the local urchin.js, then it wgets the latests version into the local directory.
#!/bin/sh
rm /home/user/websites/askapache.com/z/j/urchin.js
cd /home/user/websites/askapache.com/z/j/
wget http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js
chmod 644 /home/user/websites/askapache.com/z/j/urchin.js
cd ${OLDPWD}
exit 0;
Improved shell script
I realized right away that a more modular shell script would be needed.. I admin like 50+ web-sites and it would be stupid to have to type the same block of code 50 times, wget the same file 50 times, etc.. So this version downloads the urchin.js file into a temporary directory, then it copies it OVER the old file for each directory. So 1 GET request…

Tagged: Google Analytics, urchin.js | 11 Comments | Continue...

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Advanced Google Analytics 404 Error Page

Advanced 404 Not Found Error page usage with Google Analytics. This makes it very easy to diagnose and keep track of 404 Error messages from within google analytics. Enjoy!

2 Comments | Continue...

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Apache Authentication in htaccess

How to password-protect, Allow or Deny a visitor based on a condition. If you are having trouble getting htaccess-based password protection to work see: Troubleshooting htaccess Authentication: Getting it to work

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htaccess Tricks for Webmasters

Some of my favorite htaccess examples from some of my favorite .htaccess tutorials. These cut-and-paste ready htaccess code snippets are very useful for website and server administrators.

Tagged: htaccess, htaccess tricks | 9 Comments | Continue...

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Use php.ini to replace html with anything

Use php.ini to add HTTP Headers to output

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Web Development Glossary

Web Development / Webmaster Glossary
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Z | other glossaries
This glossary defines some of the common terminology related to Apache in particular, and web serving in general. More information on each concept is provided in the links.

Access Control
The restriction of access to network realms. In an Apache context usually the restriction of access to certain URLs.See: Authentication, Authorization, and Access Control

Account
The term “account” is often used synonymously with username here at DynDNS. Both terms describe the name you use to log in to our system. An account is not the same as a hostname, which may be named differently.

age
The age of a response is the time since it was sent by, or successfully validated with, the origin server.

Alias
See cname.

Algorithm
An unambiguous formula or set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps. Algorithms for encryption are usually called Ciphers.
APache eXtension Tool (apxs)
A perl script that aids in compiling module sources into Dynamic Shared Objects ( dsos) and helps install them in the Apache Web server.See: Manual Page: apxs

A Record
An A Record, short for Address Record, allows a numeric ipaddress to map to a more human-readable domain. An A Record may also be referred to as a host or hostname.

Authoritative Nameserver
A nameserver which has been configured to provide answers for a specific domain, rather than simply getting and caching data about domains from other nameservers.

Authentication
The positive identification of a network entity such as a server, a client, or a user.See: Authentication, Authorization, and Access Control
Advisory Committee
An Advisory Committee is a formal advisory…

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